An effort to curb binge drinking would be a start, not having bars all close in town centres at the same time or at all would be a start.
Tobacco firm Philip Morris calls for ban on cigarettes within decade
- Thread starter sullydnl
- Start date
I’ve seen all sorts pissed out of their brains, in every culture and every country.
That said, in all countries the vast vast majority drink in moderation.
The problem with the UK isn’t alcohol for me, it’s that we just have an incredible amount of wankers, the same people are wankers before they drink.
It must be peer pressure in most cases, though not always. I remember when me and my mates were young most of us had no interest in smoking. One of our mates tortured himself for weeks coughing to get addicted to smoking, despite our best efforts he wouldn't be deterred. 20 odd years later he's trying to have a kid and having a hard time giving up.
pubs arent supposed to serve customers who are drunk...has never stopped anyone.
Quit the fags over two and a half years ago — best thing I ever did.
What about the example you didn't quote? I may have edited the post, I can't remember, but I doubt it took you 20 minutes to write your reply. It's very easy being right if you just ignore part of the argument.
If you simply missed it, I would ask you to reconsider it. In any case, my post is not to be taken as an attack on moderate alcohol consumption, but an attack on the slippery slope argument of government interference on the 'freedom' of people.
As a smoker i would like to see this happen sometime. Just not while im addicted.
Prohibition doesn't work.
There are other, better ways to ingest nicotine.
Then let them win out because they're better, not by banning the other. Just leads to criminality.
People need the push to use the better methods. They're not able to make the choice properly because of their addiction.
Logically, if you could choose a less harmful, better smelling, better tasting method to get high on your drug of choice you would do it. Yet many smokers continue to choose to stink themselves up, annoy other people, stain their teeth and fingers and increase their risk of lung cancer from 15 to 30 times that of a non-smoker. And they say it's because they enjoy smoking. The truth is they don't, it's just the addiction doing the talking for them.
The example of governments requiring food labels so that people can make an informed choice on what they put into their bodies?
It'll just be sold by criminals, as it already is on a small scale, due to prices.
Where will they get the cigarettes if tobacco companies aren't making them?
Where do people get pills? Where do people get cocaine? Where do people get hash? Where did people get liquor in America?
Yeah yeah, there there.
OK, I'll admit I smiled but it me feel dirty and you should wash your mouth (or fingers and keyboard/phone?), because:
Pharmaceutical companies.
There is no legal market for this product and it's a highly valuable commodity, hard to compare.
As above, except there are some legal markets now.
Liquor is pretty easy to make. You'll need vast fields of tobacco to make a profit from cigarettes. Hard to do that out in the open if there's no substantial legal market for it or if most of the production goes to providing nicotine for vaping, patches and gum. They'll also have to compete with legal forms of nicotine, which will deter a lot of people from the illegal market.
Maybe they will grow it in Mexico, but they'll still need to smuggle it into different markets.
Realistically, though, when it becomes almost impossible to get cigarettes addicts will move to vaping and not go back. The immediate benefits are so impactful that they will kick themselves for not doing it sooner.
I’m not advocating for any bans, but they quite clearly can’t! Just look around you
I'm a smoker myself and would love to pack it in but I've tried vaping and it's awful, perhaps it will improve as the years go by, but I don't see it as a particularly useful substitute right now. I hope that smoking is some day looked back on as a ridiculous memory but I don't think prohibition is the way to go.Pharmaceutical companies.
There is no legal market for this product and it's a highly valuable commodity, hard to compare.
As above, except there are some legal markets now.
Liquor is pretty easy to make. You'll need vast fields of tobacco to make a profit from cigarettes. Hard to do that out in the open if there's no substantial legal market for it or if most of the production goes to providing nicotine for vaping, patches and gum. They'll also have to compete with legal forms of nicotine, which will deter a lot of people from the illegal market.
Maybe they will grow it in Mexico, but they'll still need to smuggle it into different markets.
Realistically, though, when it becomes almost impossible to get cigarettes addicts will move to vaping and not go back. The immediate benefits are so impactful that they will kick themselves for not doing it sooner.
You're also seem to be suggesting a global smoking ban, which I see as a little ridiculous.
Edit: I was talking about MDMA pills, my point was that these are all industrially produced by criminals because there's money to be made.
I'm not but if cigarette companies stop making cigarettes, which is a goal they appear to have on their roadmap, then it will be almost the same. They are asking government to make this an easier decision for them by legislating against this delivery mechanism. Four of the six largest tobacco companies in the world are based in the west. It won't take much for any cessation of production to have a massive impact.
Like I've been saying, there are quite a few less harmful ways to take nicotine, it's time society pushed for the incredibly harmful one to be phased out.
Sure. And for that matter, you made the other examples out to be about killing, while most people who drive around with no seatbelts, or without properly secured kids, or while using their phones, don't kill people or themselves. The vast majority, in fact. Why is drinking fine in moderation, while it's not okay to drive very slowly while using your phone? And on the topic of guns, I'm sure if you ask @Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær he'll tell you that for him, guns are definitely not just about killing.
Also, again, you're missing the point that I don't care about moderate alcohol use. That wasn't what my post was about. It was about the slippery slope argument that because the government does this, it then follows that it will do that.
Glorified hole punchers, that's all.
It is absolutely time for it to be phased out bit prohibition has never worked.
How much is a carton duty free these days. Gave up smoking a few years ago but miss it to bits. Would only smoke three or four days. But looked forward to them. I quit mainly because it was costing so much.
That's where the discussion comes in. No one is prohibiting nicotine, just the delivery method. The problem seems to come in because people can't separate the drug from the delivery method, or refuse to admit that the only reaon they smoke is for the nicotine high.
It could be argued they are better than hold punchers, will go through more sheets in each go for a start.
Hmm...I might have to try that next time I'm at the range.
It was a status thing at my school. The supposed 'cool' kids did it. Then if you did it too, you became part of that group. Probably as an act of rebellion, as they'd not really hide away and do it. I doubt many of them actually liked it, most of them looked like they weren't even doing it properly.
But they weren't the cool kids really. They were just the greasy haired chavs. The cool kids were clearly me and my mates who sat in the library and talked about wrestling every day.
It’s just a way for companies to avoid any form of accountability(legally) moving forward. After all, they have made billions selling people products that they fully know are harmful.
You’d struggle to kill someone having a glass of wine, if you drive slowly and use your phone you are still a significant risk to others. The same is true for drinking 2 glasses of wine and driving, you are now breaking the law because even in moderation those two activities make you a significant risk.
There’s a huge difference in the government creating rules to prevent people from hurting others or forcing companies to be transparent in what they are selling, to preventing people from doing things that have many positive effects on society, things that are so ingrained into our culture and our ways of socialising that they’ve been around since pre modern humans. That’s called a nanny state, and that’s the “slippery slope”. Next up, China style caps on children.
Last edited:
The industry has had some pretty big judgments against them, so the accountability argument seems flawed. I see it more as it is difficult to stop producing and selling a product if it is still profitable and while this is likely to trail off as the years go by nothing initiates change like regulation.
Now, to be clear, Phillip Morris etc aren't being altruistic here, they're simply trying to avoid a Blockbuster scenario.
Last edited:
would you seriously want this
I mean they do sell cigarettes after all. And it is worth pointing out that big tobacco companies have never been held accountable. Moving forward, this will only become harder because they have rebranded as a health and wellness corporation that lead the campaign to ban cigarettes.
As to your argument about limiting production, I don’t see that happening with cigarettes. Since they are so easy to make and do not require sophisticated mechanisms or technology to make one. Banning them will only lead to higher demand and creation of a new market for cigarettes.
I think that even globally, health impacts of smoking is probably one of the best educated issues we have as societies, everyone knows its horrifically bad for your health, the problem is its one of the most addictive substances available to humans and it is still having trouble shaking A- "cool" factor that makes it desirable for younger people(it is getting better in this regard), and B - an easy (unfortunatly) still affordable crutch that poorer people tend to have to rely on to get them through insanely stressful lives. There's multifaceted challenges to tackle Issues like smoking/drinking/drugs, I genuinely think we have nailed the education side, we just haven't touched the societal problems that help lean people so heavily towards these crutches.
Is there research on cigarette consumption comparing rich to poor countries?
I mean, we have US vs Phillip Morris, The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement and a couple of big class actions in Canada to name a few. I'm sure many would only consider "accountable" to be situations where these companies are rendered bankrupt and shut down but judgments are judgments. I don't see it becoming difficult to enact more accountability later because they've rebranded, courts will care about the actions these companies took when they were tobacco companies.
Like I said, at least one of them has seen the writing on the wall and they are trying to shift themselves away from a dying product. It's nowhere near that yet but it will be, hence my comparison to Blockbuster. There is no new market for cigarettes, it is shrinking and eventually will become unprofitable.
I don't smoke, and I don't like to be in the vicinity of people who do - but just because smoking is harmful we shouldn't necessarily ban it.
I wouldn't call that accountability. It is just corporations getting caught for obviously terrible business practices (often too late), paying a fine, and going back to business as usual. I agree with your point that cigarettes are a dying market. I just meant banning them will eventually lead to a spike in terms of the demand.
Really?
Yeah like I said, the accountable aspect is certainly arguable but they've been publicly outed at least.
I don't think we'll ever see a meaningful spike in demand for cigarettes again. The other options are easily accessible and once a smoker's taste and smell recover they won't go back to burning tobacco as a delivery method.